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Tuesday, July 7, 2015

It's Tuesday - quilting progress

My occasional small scrap project lists (the last one was here) have been helping me to keep from starting new scrappy projects every time I sit down to the machine. And it reminds me that this project went from using my blogger's bundle to being a scrappy one as I hunted for more fabric to finish her off. This last weekend I was working on quilting the magenta and navy courthouse steps quilt. I settled on making this quilt a nice 70" square.

I decided - wait for it - on quilting some lines on the quilt. This time I decided to quilt each lantern separately, rather than an all over set of lines. The lines in the lanterns are unevenly spaced but about 1/4" to 1/2" apart freehand on my long arm Millennium. Also, I purposely decided to not stitch the outline of the lantern - either in the ditch or away from the edge. I wanted to see how it would work without that more "finished" or traditional approach to motif stitching.

I'm also changing threads to sort of match the lanterns - dark blue, variegated pink and ivory/sand. The motif quilting and the changing threads is making this a much slower quilting project, but also fun and relaxing.

I know that some folks mend in their threads as they go. So far, I can't bring myself to do that, when I am in a quilting frame of mind I am too impatient to do a nice job on the mending in. I am thinking all the thread changes on this quilt and the subsequent time to mend them in later might reform me some, we shall see.

Here is where I stopped. I am hoping to get time to finish her off this week.

I think your quilting motif is perfectand modern, and I agree about burying threads at the end, too! So glad you did a close up so I could see it was a navy with pink. I'm looking forward to seeing your back when you're all done.

I almost always tuck my threads in later on, too. I use it as a nice time to cuddle up on the sofa with the quilt and watch a movie as I do this task. Much nicer than interrupting quilting time to do it then. Love the lines following the lantern orientations. Very nice effect.

This is looking stunning! I'd love to know how other people go about finishing off ends? Take a needle and darn them somehow? I have been just taking a locking stitch and snipping the end, maybe that is not durable or a good way? Have heard of people burying the ends what do they mean when it's machine quilting? I have seen how the knot is buried if hand quilting.Beautiful colours and the solution for the centres is perfect!